Headstrong
by TheRadMonkey
Summary: After the defeat of Voldemort, a few students have decided to return to Hogwarts and finish their education. Living in a place full of confused, horny, ptsd-ridden teenagers is more difficult than one might assume, however. NL/BZ SF/DT TN/OC
1. Survivors Guilt

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does. I do, however, own Emily. She's my personal bitch.**

**A/N: Every chapter will be in different POV's. Some chapters will even have multiple POVs. Deal with it.**

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><p><strong><em>Chapter 01 - Survivors Guilt<em>**

_"Dammit Emily! Run!"_

_ "I'm trying!"_

She had me by the hand, pulling me, trying to save me.

_ My ankle shot with pain every time I pounded down on it, but I didn't care. They were in trouble. I had to help. We had to help._

_ "Just leave me, _Fay," I pleaded, attempting once more to pull my hand out of hers. She shot me a glare, full of so much emotion that I couldn't comprehend it.

_ There was a loud crack and I screamed, I couldn't help it. _

_ We were going to die._

_ We were both going to die._

_ I stumbled. _

_ There was a flash of green light._

_ I watched in horror as Fay's fingers slipped out of mine and she fell._

_ There was a flash of green light -_

"Emily. Emily! Wake up!"

I bolted upright in bed, shuddering with silent sobs and grabbing onto the first thing I could.

Neville allowed himself to be thrown onto my sheets, allowed me to wrap my arms around him and sob into his chest.

"S'okay, Em," I heard him mumble soothingly, patting my back in an attempt to make me feel better.

I loved Neville. He was like the brother I'd never had. When we'd been younger, I'd kept mostly to myself. Not bothering to talk to many people, unless it seemed necessary. No friends, no one to talk to in Gryffindor tower.

Well, until Fay, at least.

She'd changed everything for me. Made me appreciate humanity. And then she'd died, and I hadn't been able to save her.

Now here I was, in the west tower, with Neville as my roommate, in a place filled with people who knew exactly how I felt. Well, not quite exactly, I'm sure there were differences, but we'd all lost someone we loved.

"Emily," Neville began after a moment of me clutching onto him and crying, "I think you're choking me." He sounded apologetic, and I immediately let him go, feeling guilty.

"Sorry," I mumbled, bowing my head and playing with a stray thread in the sheet.

"S'okay," Neville told me, giving my hair a teasing ruffle before standing up. "D'you want to go back to sleep? It's still pretty early."

No. I didn't want to go back to sleep. I wanted to scream.

I shook my head, tugging on the loose thread hard. "I think I'm going to go out for a bit," I told him, finally moving to get up. "Sneak into the kitchens or something."

"Emily," I jumped as he laid a hand on my shoulder, "You've got to sleep sometime. We've got classes tomorrow."

I finally moved my gaze from the floor to him, biting worriedly on the inside of my bottom lip. "You might want to take your own advice," I offered, attempting a weak smile. He smiled back, giving my shoulder another squeeze and leaning in for another comforting hug before pulling back.

"Bring me some pumkin juice, will you?" He asked softly, and I nodded.

"I will," I promised, edging out of the bedroom and not relaxing until I'd closed the door behind me.

I was sure I looked awful as I walked down the stairs to the common room. My hair was a sleepy mess, my eyeliner had probably gotten all smudgy since I hadn't bothered to take it off, and I was still in my pajamas. Hell, I hadn't even bothered putting on shoes. Which was turning out to be horrible because the stone steps were freezing my bloody toes off.

The fire in the common room was going strong, which I found to be quite amazing. Used to getting up in the middle of the night as I was, I knew when the house elves came to stroke the fire, and I very much doubted they'd been along yet.

It didn't take me too long to figure it out though, seeing as there was a Slytherin in one of the arm chairs.

He gave me a sleepy glance as I came downstairs, and a nod which I sleepily returned.

"Was it you doing banshee impersonations, then?" Blaise asked, not even bothering to sound snarky. He didn't have to, snarkiness came to him naturally.

"Sorry,"I mumbled, not really in the mood to make it sound sincere.

He shrugged nonchalantly, still looking exhausted. "It's quite alright, Tarver," he accepted, his eyes drooping in what could only be described as an adorable way, "sleep is for weak." I suppose that meant I was the strongest bloody person in the world then.

"I was about to nip down to the kitchens," I began, taking a careful step around the couch, "want to come?"

He nodded, practically stumbling to his feet. I noticed forlornly that Blaise wasn't wearing shoes either. "Sure," he agreed, picking his way over to the side table. "D'you want me to sign you out as well?"

"If you don't mind," I replied, stifling a yawn. Now that the initial fear and agony of my nightmare was over, exhaustion was settling in my body.

"Know what time it is?" He asked after a moment of peering over the table, blinking sleepily. I checked my watch, stifling another yawn in the process.

"3:17," I told him, staring at the digital numbers unhappily. He groaned audibly, seeming to be channeling my annoyance as well.

If someone had told me two years ago that I would currently be having a Slytherin as a companion, and not just any Slytherin but Blaise Zambini, I would've laughed and advised them to visit St. Mungo's.

And possibly people could blame it on the fact that we shared the same common room.

After the school had been rebuilt and we'd gotten a second chance at graduating, all the seventh years (now eighth years) had been stuck up in the previously useless West Tower. There weren't that many of us left who even wanted to come back.

Neville, Seamus, Dean, Parvati, and I made up the Gryffindors. Blaise, Theodore Nott, and Daphne Greengrass (who never spoke to anyone if she could help it). Padma Patil (Parvati's twin sister), Terry Boot, Michael Corner, and Anthony Goldstein made up Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff had the most attending, practically a whole barrel full (no pun intended), with Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbot, Megan Jones, Susan Bones, Wayne Hopkins, and Justin Finch-Fletchley.

We were eighteen, and there of our own free will, and there wasn't much the school could get us for except for disrupting the younger students and being insufferable adults. So they'd made a system, trusting us like no other professor's would, and gave us free reign of the school morning, afternoon, and night as long as we didn't fail our NEWTs. The only stipulation was that if we were leaving the common room for something other than classes, studying, or morning/lunch/dinner time, then we had to sign in and out.

Would Blaise and I get in trouble if we were caught wondering the school at night? No. Did that mean we should've? No.

"So," Blaise began as we made out way out of the common room and into the sleeping castle corridors, "what was it about this time?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I muttered immediately, avoiding his eyes, which were staring at me incredulously.

"Don't be daft, Tarver," Blaise snapped, and I knew it was the lack of sleep that was wearing on his patience, "you're bloody nightmare. Or memory, I suppose I should say. Which one was it?"

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," I muttered petulantly, still ignoring his gaze in favor for staring hard at the floor.

It was easy to know when Blaise had been woken up by someone else and when he'd woken up from a nightmare all on his own. The common room fire and the time of night gave him away spectacularly.

"Was it your friend?" Blaise asked, hitting it right on the money, as usual, "Dunbar?" Just having him mention Fay made my stomach twist up into knots. When I didn't immediately answer, he nodded, seeming to know exactly what I was feeling. "You'll have to talk to someone about it sometime, Tarver," Blaise told me, his tone going soft and coaxing as if worried I might lash out.

It didn't really help.

"I _do_ talk about it," I snapped, looking up to shoot him a small, offended glare before letting my gaze hit my feet.

"Mentioning it in passing to me and Longbottom doesn't count," Blaise told me loftily as we stopped in front of the Kitchen's portrait. I reached up to tickle the pear, ignoring him once more as the portrait opened for us.

The house elves were excited to see us, as they usually were, and seated us at a small elf-sized table immediately.

"Thanks a lot, Bunches," I told the tiny blue-eyed house elf that placed a large plate of french toast in front of me. "You're a right blessing."

"Bunches is always happy to help Mistress Tarver," Bunches exclaimed squeakily, stumbling over his words and his feet as he bowed himself away from us.

"I love that elf," I told Blaise after biting into the french toast with a low groan. "If it were legal I would marry him in a heartbeat."

Blaise let out a very un-Slytherin snort, stealing a piece of toast from my plate and nibbling on it happily. "Does Bunches get a say in this marriage?" I didn't reply, my mouth too full of french toast to answer. "Did you ever think that maybe he doesn't want to be married to a small ginger brat for the rest of his life?"

"Who would," I replied rhetorically, rolling my eyes even as I feasted on french toast.

"Harry Potter," Blaise answered immediately, and we shared a very Slytherin smirk.

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><p>"I meant what I said," Blaise told me as the portrait hole closed behind us. "You need to talk to someone professional before you go mad."<p>

I didn't answer, mostly because I knew that if I opened my mouth I would just get snappy with him.

We'd spent thirty minutes in the kitchens, eating and drinking and talking about nothing at all while the house elves worked around us.

I had a glass of pumpkin juice in my hand, and the contents swished slightly as I turned around, hiding the expression on my face from him.

"And if you don't find someone soon, I'll find someone for you." My lips pursed and my hands clenched around the glass, I forced myself to keep from speaking. The conversation had been doing so well, too... "I didn't go and save you just for you to end up like this."

He'd promised we'd never talk about that again. It wasn't bad enough that I owed something to a Slytherin, but I owed my life to a Slytherin. He knew how upset that made me.

I spun around, shooting him an angry glare, unable to keep my mouth shut after all. "Well maybe you shouldn't have done it then, because I'm not fucking talking to anyone, you bloody twat!"

Blaise took my words calmly, his face expressionless as he walked over to where I stood, towering above me in a very uncomfortable way. "'Survivor's Guilt' is not a good color on anyone, Emily, least of all you." His facial features transformed into a slightly teasing smile as he ruffled my hair. "It clashes with the ginger."

"Bloody poof," I muttered petulantly as my anger dissipated with his words, swatting his hand away. He knew I didn't mean it offensively. "Go to bed and leave me alone."

Blaise's smile turned into a full blown grin and he got away with another ruffle of my hair before backing away slightly. "Pleasant dreams, Tarver," he said, giving me a wink as he turned away and began walking.

"'Night, Zambini," I replied, going towards my own room with a muttered "twat" under my breath, just for good measure.

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><p>I was woken up from a fairly dreamless sleep by a sudden dousing of ice cold water. I let out a small shriek of surprise, stumbling out of my bed and wiping my dripping hair from my face. "Jesus Christ!" I exclaimed, shuddering helplessly on the frigid stone floor.<p>

"Nope," Neville replied brightly, "it's just me. Sorry to disappoint."

I glared up at him, my teeth chattering and my mind still foggy from the rude awakening. "What the _fuck_ was that for?" I snarled, moving my stiff joints in an effort to get off the floor.

Neville had his wand out, probably to summon cold water onto me, and with a flick of his wrist I was dry. That didn't make me feel any less furious.

"Well I had to wake you up somehow," he explained with a nonchalant shrug, stepping back before I took a swipe at his shins.

"You couldn't have found a better way!" I screamed, finally losing my head as I roughly got to my feet. "I'm going to _murder_ you Neville Longbottom!"

Neville took another step back, this time for a much different reason. "I tried shaking you," he told me quickly, stumbling over his words as I locked the door before he could get it open, "but you wouldn't wake up and-and-"

I grabbed my wand from the bed side table, ignoring it's sudden dampness and pointing it threateningly at him.

He stared at it, looking slightly horrified. "I love you?" he half asked, half pleaded. If it had been any other situation (if I hadn't been rudely awakened, in other words) I would've found his reaction to be amusing.

Instead it just made me angrier. So I did the one thing that my infuriated mind could think of. Which is exactly why, thirty minutes later, Neville was walking into the common room behind me, his hair a bright magenta.

Blaise was standing by the opposite staircase, looking bored when we walked down. As soon as he caught sight of Neville, his eyebrows raised slightly into a bemused expression.

"Wow Longbottom," he drawled (still somehow managing to look bored with the whole thing), "who knew you would actually look quite good in magenta."

I watched in amusement as Neville's cheeks went as bright as his hair. "Shut up, Zambini," he mumbled, avoiding all of our eyes.

I sniggered.

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><p><strong>AN: Review. It will make me happy =).**


	2. Angst Of A Teenage Irishman

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. What I do own is an impressive CD collection, seven shelves of books, and a very large and very profficent firearm. Big difference, I know.**

**A/N: Am I a horrible person for not updating in over a month? Maybe, but I can live with that.**

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><p><em><strong>Chapter 02 - Angst Of A Teenage Irishman<strong>  
><em>

_"Seamus...Seamus...oh fuck mmm right there!"_

_ I could feel him writhing, his dark skin glistening with sweat and his fingers digging into my back as I stared at the perfect face underneath me._

_ "Ohgodohgodohfuck you're so good-"_

_ I felt dizzy with pleasure, the sight of his ecstasy, the smell of sex, and the feel of being inside of him was almost too much for me to take._

_ "Mmm faster!"_

_ I obligingly picked up the pace, my breath coming out in short gasps, listening to his pleasured moans._

_ "Seamus I'm so close, pleasepleaseplease-"_

_ I felt his hand dip between us as he wrapped a hand around his erection. I leaned down, my teeth making contact with his skin as I bit back a moan of my own._

_ He came suddenly with a feminine scream, the sound echoing my ears loudly, I could feel him clenching around me, feel myself slip over the edge, feel-_

I woke up with a start, my eyes popping open and my torso lifting off the bed. A scream cut off abruptly from upstairs, and I groaned unhappily, letting my body fall back onto the mattress.

Someone had had another nightmare, it sounded like. Someone else, that seemed to be having as horrible a night as I was.

My cheeks heated up in embarrassment as I realized I'd had _another _one of those damn dreams. I shot a quick glance at Dean to make sure he wasn't awake. His face was turned to me, and I'd seen my best mate asleep enough times to know that he wasn't faking it. Thank merlin.

I raised my hand long enough to let it smack down on my face in defeat. "Shit," I swore quietly, grimacing.

Out of all of the guys to have embarrassing homosexual wet dreams about, Dean was no one's first choice, least of all mine. However my sub-conscience seemed to disagree. Sure, Dean was quite good-looking, but he was also the biggest homophobe I'd ever met in my entire life.

If he found out I was dream-wanking over him, I'd be dead. He would literally kill me. Even if we were best mates.

And the worst part was that this wasn't even the first one. Oh no, they'd been going on for _months_. Which was not only incredibly sexually frustrating, but embarrassing as well. I hadn't even had queer thoughts until these damn things started. I was supposed to be straight!

Wait a second. Was it normal for straight guys to have wet dreams about their mates? Someone had to know who wouldn't either laugh at me, curse me, or tell everyone. Right?

That's it, first thing in the morning I was owling Harry. He would know. Then again, from what I could tell all of his dreams were messed up, so maybe he wasn't the best person to go to. Neville was out too, since he was so obviously gay. Of course he would have wet dreams about other boys. I could always ask Justin, I supposed. He was straight as far as I knew, and he was a Hufflepuff to boot, so he'd probably even be nice and not ask for details.

Except Justin was such a little bitch. He'd probably never had a wet dream in his life.

And I couldn't ask one of the Zambini or Nott, because they were too unpredictable, and Zambini was a queer too.

I thought hard about my options.

Obviously Dean was out. Ernie was out too, because he was much too pompous to have a conversation with.

Michael might not be a bad idea. He'd dated Ginny, so he was obviously straight. And he was a Ravenclaw, so he'd probably look at it from an academic stand-point. He might ask questions, but I could deal with that. He wouldn't laugh at me (probably), and he probably wouldn't curse me either. And I could trust him with a secret. Or at least I hoped I could.

Yes, Michael would have to be my best bet. There was nothing else for it. I couldn't keep waking up in the middle of the night after having those bloody nightmares.

Feeling a little better after making a decision, I managed to fall back into a dreamless sleep.

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><p>"Get up, you git." Cue pillow to the head.<p>

I groaned, opening my eyes to see a blurry Dean standing above me with my pillow in his.

"Wha'?" I asked sleepily, blinking blearily up at him.

"It's time for breakfast," he reminded me, sounding almost amused. Looking amused too.

"Five minu's," I mumbled, turning over and closing my eyes once more. I was already half-passed out when I felt the pillow hit me again, this time in the back of the head.

"Hurry up, Seamus, or we'll be late," he quite possibly whined, making me turn slightly to give him a couple of skeptic raised eyebrows. "And take a shower, you smell like cat piss," Dean added. For good measure, I assumed.

"Yer mam smells like cat piss," I muttered defiantly, even as I sat up. Sitting up meant a lot of groaning and cracks as my back popped. "Can't we just skip it?" I asked him, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes with one hand and pulling back the covers with the other.

"The shower or the food?" He asked, moving back to his side of the room.

"Both," I answered before giving a loud yawn. "'S too early," I added, my voice muffled by the blankets and the wall as I curled away from him.

And then my wonderfully warm covers were ripped away from my body and I was being dragged out of bed by my hair. "_Get_..._up_..." Dean grunted as I squealed (girlishly, I'll admit it) and struggled to get out of his quite painful grasp.

"Bugger off, ye fuckin' wanker!" I yelled, attempting to pry his hands off of my precious though admittedly short-cropped hair. When it became obvious that I was lost, I gave up. "I'm awake!" I snapped just as my bum met the cold stone floor. "Ye bastard," I added when Dean let me go.

Dean, of course, didn't answer, as he was looking at his watch again. The watch I'd given him for his birthday, I'd like to point out. After a moment he sighed forlornly. "There's no time for a shower for you, Cat-Piss, so just get dressed and lets go."

I gave him a glare but stood up. The mornings were the worst for me. It was after I'd actually woken up that I would think about whatever damned dream I'd had about my best friend, and of course Dean would be there, half-bloody-naked, and I would hear him moaning my name and everything would just go to hell.

I shivered a bit as the cycle began anew. He was staring at me expectantly, his lips slightly parted, his cheeks still a bit flushed from exertion, and I all I could think about was Dream-Dean looking quite similar last night.

"Are you waiting for permission?" Dean asked snidely and the moment shattered. I shook my head a bit, clearing my thoughts, before turning around.

"Just wonderin' if yer plannin' on watchin' me dress," I snapped back, knowing the effect it would have on him and feeling relieved at his disgusted scoff.

"You wish, you bloody fag," He snorted, and a moment later the door was closing behind him and I was alone.

I groaned piteously, putting my head in my hands and slumped. I was fucking buggered if that shit kept happening. Dean was many things, but blind wasn't one of them and he'd figure it out eventually and I would lose my best friend and the world would go to shit.

It took me a bit to collect myself - 'specially since all I really wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry like a little girl - but I eventually managed to get on my school uniform and get out the door to the common room.

Dean was waiting for me as usual, bum planted on the couch as he gave me an exasperated look. "What were you doing up there?" He asked, standing up to join me. "Fixing your hair?"

"Bugger off," I muttered half-heartedly, keeping the portrait hole open for him before leading us down to the great hall. We made the trek in mostly-silence, keeping the good-natured annoyance that we always had in the mornings.

Sitting down at the table reserved for all the eighth years, the first thing I noticed (other than the fact that Dean was sitting next to me, but I always noticed that) was Neville's hair. It was a startling shade of pink, and it took me a moment to really register the fact.

"Er...Neville," I began, cocking my head to the side to give the color a better look. Neville's face had immediately turned a brighter shade then his hair as soon as he caught me staring. "Did ye know yer hair is pink?"

"It was me," Emily spoke up from her spot between our new pink-haired friend and Blaise Zambini. "And that's what the twat gets for waking me up with water."

"But, Emily-" Neville begins, almost whining, only to be cut off by a curious look from Dean.

"Water?" He asked Neville with interest. "Cold water or hot water? Does it really work?"

"It really works," Emily promised him, glaring at Neville in thinly-veiled annoyance. "But it's a bad idea. Isn't it, Neville."

Emily, I was beginning to think, was spending too much time with Slytherins, if the smirk on Blaise's face was anything to go by.

"Oh yes," Neville agreed quickly when he caught her expression. "Worst idea I've ever thought of."

Realizing a bit too late why Dean was asking in the first place, I jabbed my best friend in the side. "Don' even think abou' it, ye blasted twat," I told him with a glower.

Blaise's smirk had turned to us at my words, and with a sinking feeling I wondered if maybe he'd caught on to my wayward dreams. If maybe, just maybe, he knew the horrible images my mind created when I was asleep.

Dean seemed to notice this as well, because he began glaring at the other boy. "What are you looking at, queer?"

Blaise raised an eyebrow, seemingly unoffended by Dean's slight, though Neville blushed furiously. Maybe Neville wouldn't be so bad to talk to after all. Better than Michael Corner, even.

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><p>I spent half of my classes trying not to - however unsuccessfully it went - think about my nightmares. And since it was going so unsuccessfully, I was doing crap in both Transfiguration and Potions. It was almost a good thing Dean was beside me through the two of them, since every time I would begin to drift he would notice and elbow me in the stomach to get me back in there.<p>

"What's going on in your head?" Dean hissed halfway through potions when I accidentally added the lacewing flies ten minutes early.

"Nothing important," I muttered in response, keeping an eye on the unaware Professor Slughorn as he helped Parvarti and Padma with their sleeping drought.

Except it was important. Very important. As if it weren't bad enough that I was picturing the dream I'd had a few days ago - Dean had pushed me up against the wall in an abandoned classroom and snogged me senseless before I'd been most unceremoniously woken by said offender - I also couldn't help the torrent of questions that infiltrated by brain.

Why did it start happening in the first place?

I couldn't really want Dean like that, could I?

Was it a prank? Had someone actually _pranked _me? And, if so - Did I need to ask George Weasley how to get rid of it?

When thinking about the last questions, I would try to remember when it all began, though that was easy enough. About a week after the final battle. When I'd spent a bloody year worried to death about Dean, my muggle-born best friend, who was on the run from the Death Eaters. I still remembered seeing him for the first time after that. In the Room of Requirement as he stepped through the portrait hole from Aberforths. All of the feelings that had rushed through me as soon as our eyes met - relief, worry, hope - and the only stupid thing I could think of following that was to squeal like a bloody girl and hug him.

Embarrassing, when I look back on it.

But at the time, I'd spent the better part of a year constantly worrying about his safety, wondering where he was, if he was alright, if he'd run into Harry, Ron, and Hermione since they were on the run too. And in that moment, just seeing him alive...I could've kissed him.

Thank goodness I didn't, however, as he might've hexed me.

And, of course, that was before I had to relearn all of the things about my best friend. He'd changed so much, as had I, and it was like starting over again.

He hadn't had a problem with homosexuality until the war. He hadn't been angry too often either, before the war. Now just about anything could set him off, and since there was still a lot of things he wasn't telling me about that year we were separated, I rarely know what'll do it.

It's hard sometimes, and we fight more than we used to, but it's worth it. For Dean, it's always been worth it.

By the time classes were over for the day, however, I wasn't too sure about that. I'd been kicked, elbowed, smacked, punched, kneed, and set on fire all by my supposed best friend. Which, in hindsight, wasn't completely his fault seeing as he was only trying to keep me from drifting off into my own head, but still. I was about ready to kick/elbow/smack/punch/knee/inflame the hell out of him.

"Stop glaring at me," Dean sighed - not for the first time - as we sat in the common room that evening. "You shouldn't be glaring at all, even. You should be on your knees begging for forgiveness. Listening to you mutter under you bloody breath for six hours straight makes it hard to concentrate."

"Bugger off," was all I could think to say at that point. My dick was still sore from when the heel of Dean's foot and my poor member met. I winced at the memory. "I still can' believe ye kicked me bleedin' bollocks in."

"You're being over-dramatic," Dean replied, waving off my complaints with a flick of his hand. "I barely even kicked you."

"You practically made the poor bugger pass out," Megan Jones told Dean with a snigger as she passed by our grouped chairs.

"An' ye din't even apologize," I added quickly, glaring at him. Dean very pointedly rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry," He said (sarcastically, I noted), "now stop being such a fucking girl."

Well Dream-Dean sure as hell wasn't getting any tonight, that was for sure.

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><p><strong>AN: Review, or I'll sick Jay and Silent Bob on you.**


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